The present invention relates to containers that incorporate separate compartments for different products, and more particularly to containers for beverages and other liquids with incorporate interior compartments for containing food items, refrigeration packages, and other auxiliary products.
As even a casual visit to a supermarket or other food retailer will demonstrate, there is a wide variety of packaging designed to facilitate the storage and transport of different food items, and to present the food items in an attractive manner at the point of purchase. An increasingly favored segment of this packaging, often called product merging, involves containing and presenting combinations of different foods in a single package. Examples include crackers and cheese, different kinds of meat and/or cheese, and crackers with different spreads. Prepackaged complete meals include different compartments for different foods, e.g. a meat entrée and a vegetable entrée. Other examples of product merging include combining a food item with a prize, or with a utensil such as a spoon or straw.
Packaging for combinations of products is designed to meet a variety of needs, one of them being convenience to the consumer. Many purchasers appreciate the simplicity and ease resulting from a cost-effective merger or combination of complementary products. This is particularly the case where the merged products, when sold separately, are normally found at different locations at the food retailer. Convenience results from combinations of products often consumed together, but traditionally purchased separately. In a trend running counter to the tendency of many manufacturers to “super-size” their products, cost-conscious and health-conscious parents are inclined to purchase snacks for their children in packages that contain reduced quantities of the complementary products, thus offering a lower cost combination with less to carry and less to consume.
Another need for such packaging is efficiency in product distribution. Vending machine operators look for products that conform to, or are readily adaptable to, existing machines and distribution systems. The products involved are more acceptable when their packaging does not require any substantial changes to the product distribution system or to individual vending machines.
When one of the merged products is a liquid, containers for the product combination must meet certain requirements not present in many other product combination applications. These include the need for a container with sufficient structural integrity to “shape” the liquid, which typically assumes the shape of the container. The container wall must be impermeable to liquids, and in many cases also must be capable of forming a moisture seal, to effectively contain the liquid, and also to maintain the accessory product separate from the liquid.
Additional needs arise due to the nature of the accessory product. Snack foods such as cookies, crackers and chips may fracture or crumble easily, and consequently are better protected in packaging with sufficient structural integrity to maintain a desired shape. Because of this, past attempts to merge beverages and fragile snack items have resulted in packaging that is not particularly appealing or cost-effective. When rigid snack food packaging is combined with a bottle or other package containing a liquid, the end result is bulky, and often lacks consumer appeal.
The need for improvements in product merging containers has health implications as well. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, for example, milk consumption by children of ages 11 to 18 decreased by 36 percent from 1965 to 1996, while consumption of soft drinks and non-citrus juices climbed steadily. The decline in milk consumption during teenage and pre-teen years raises the risk, especially in women, of developing osteoporosis later in life. Increased milk consumption would be beneficial not only for the increased calcium consumption, but also because milk contains vitamin D to aid calcium absorption, and other essential nutrients important to early and later childhood growth and development.
The increase in soft drink and non-citrus juice consumption is a contributing factor to the increase in percentage of children deemed overweight, and increased rates of early-onset diabetes and heart disease. An attractively packaged combination of milk (or citrus juice) and an appropriate snack food would appeal to younger consumers, and perhaps counteract some of the disturbing trends in beverage consumption.
A variety of dual compartment containers have been developed to serve different needs. For example, a recently published U.S. patent application (Publication No. U.S. 2002/0040883) to Ciesla discloses a beverage bottle with an interior recess, open to the bottom of the bottle, for holding a stack of cups. The recess acts as a dispenser, allowing removal of one cup at a time. U.S. Pat. No. 5,211,299 (Manfredonia) is directed to a baby bottle with a recess open to the bottom for storing a truncated conical cap.
A baby bottle disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,467,877 (Smith) includes a recess open to the bottom of the bottle for containing an ice pack core to keep the contents cool. The core is held in by a threaded cap removably attached to the bottom of the bottle. U.S. Pat. No. 6,293,435 (Forsberg) shows a liquid specimen container with a first fluid sample container having a lid at the top, and a second fluid sample container disposed within a recess open to the bottom of the first container. The recess is ribbed to frictionally hold the second container. A recess open to a container top is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,992,677 (Ebine). The recess is designed to hold a product, particle, prize or object such as a towelette.
Although the foregoing containers may be suitable for the purposes described in their respective patents, they fail to adequately address a variety of needs for vending and otherwise distributing containers of liquids and complementary products, particularly in the beverage and snack food industries.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide containers having a size and shape suitable for offering single servings of beverages through conventional vending machines, and further for containing complementary products in a manner that affords convenient access to the complementary products without interfering with consumption of the beverage.
Another object is to provide a container for a liquid and a complementary product that allows reclosure of the container after a partial consumption or other use of a beverage or other liquid, and preferably also allows convenient reinsertion of the complementary product after partial consumption or use, if desired.
A further object is to provide a system for conveniently containing two complementary products, including a container shaped to provide a compartment for one of the products and a recess separate from the compartment for containing the other product, in which the second product is closely surrounded by a compliant covering or wrap to provide a cartridge removably nested within the recess.
Yet another object is to provide a container with a liquid-impermeable wall forming a compartment for liquids and defining a recess isolated from the compartment, sized and shaped to contain an elongate cartridge removably axially insertable into the recess, and alternatively to contain an elongate core adapted to support the container in a dispensing position when inserted into the recess.